Open access theses in institutional repositories: an exploratory study of the perceptions of doctoral students

Introduction. We examine doctoral students' awareness of and attitudes to open access forms of publication. Levels of awareness of open access and the concept of institutional repositories, publishing behaviour and perceptions of benefits and risks of open access publishing were explored.
Method. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through interviews with eight doctoral students enrolled in a range of disciplines in a New Zealand university and a self-completion Web survey of 251 students. Analysis. Interview data were analysed thematically, then evaluated against a theoretical framework. The interview data were then used to inform the design of the survey tool. Survey responses were analysed as a single set, then by disciple using SurveyMonkey’s online toolkit and Excel. Results. While awareness of open access and repository archiving is still low, the majority of interview and survey respondents were found to be supportive of the concept of open access. The perceived benefits of enhanced exposure and potential for sharing outweigh the perceived risks. The majority of respondents were supportive of an existing mandatory thesis submission policy. Conclusions. Low levels of awareness of the university repository remains an issue, and could be addressed by further investigating the effectiveness of different communication channels for promotion.

Introduction and research objectives

In most New Zealand universities, institutional repository archiving is
not compulsory for academics but is often mandatory for doctoral and/or
masters students. The University of Auckland and Massey University for
instance, have implemented mandatory deposit of theses for all doctoral
students enrolled since 1 January 2007. On one hand, open access to
postgraduate theses is exciting, as student authors can disseminate
their research to a wide audience and may be cited more easily by
researchers in their academic community. On the other, open access
archiving may raise concerns over copyright, plagiarism and premature
publication of findings.

Studies focusing on the attitudes of academic staff have been conducted
in New Zealand and overseas, but very few studies have been conducted
into the attitudes of postgraduate students toward these new models of
scholarly publishing. No studies on student perceptions of repository
archiving or open access publishing have been conducted in New Zealand,
as reflected in the current body of literature.

This study attempts to uncover underlying attitudes of a sample of New
Zealand doctoral students toward open access publishing and repository
archiving in journals and repositories and their attitudes toward the
mandatory submission of their theses to their university's repository.
Investigating how and from whom awareness, perceptions and attitudes
towards these modes of publishing arise is an important facet of the
project. Gaining insight into these issues has the potential to
contribute to efforts aimed at raising awareness of the benefits of
open access and promoting repositories in different disciplines.

It is anticipated that an understanding of the attitudes of doctoral
students toward open archiving of theses and a better understanding of
their research and publishing behaviour could assist university library
staff in developing repository submission policies and processes that
suit students and in doing so, encourage student collaboration in the
ongoing development of repository collections.

The main research question of this study is: What attitudes and
perceptions do postgraduate students hold in relation to the potential
significance, benefit and risk of archiving their doctoral theses in an
open access institutional repository?
The research addresses the main question through the following
sub-questions:

To what extent are students aware of repositories and open access
in the context of scholarly publishing?

Do students use documents archived in repositories, open journals
and open monographs in their own thesis research?

Do students from different disciplines have different perceptions
of open access publishing and repository archiving?

How and from whom have existing perceptions of repositories and
open access publishing been formed?

Are students willing to comply with mandatory repository
submission policies?

The research questions also attempt to address a broader issue: What
can institutions do to improve awareness of the role of the
institutional repository, address risks or potentially negative aspects
of repository archiving and encourage the ongoing use and consistent
deposit of doctoral theses in the future?

Literature review

According to Suber (2007), open access
literature (of all types) is 'digital, online, free of charge and free of most copyright
restrictions', allowing readers to download, print, distribute and even
create derivative works, as long as attribution is acknowledged.
Publication and distribution costs are not paid by the reader and are
therefore not a barrier to access. According to the Bethesda Statement
(2003),
open access allows
for unrestricted derivative use (e.g., translation, or including an
excerpt in another publication), whereas free access may not
necessarily allow this (MacCallum 2007). It is
important to note also
that open access publishing is compatible with established processes of

In terms of a definition of open access in relation to institutional
repositories, the Bethesda Statement also states that an open access
publication is one that is 'deposited immediately on publication in at
least one online repository that is supported by an academic
institution, scholarly society, government agency or other well
established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted
distribution.' (Bethesda Statement...
publishing 2003)

The role and purpose of institutional repositories

A reoccurring theme within the literature is how to define an
institutional repository and its role in the scholarly communication
process (Xia and Sun 2007). Lynch's working
definition is often cited as it is broad enough to encompass a large
number of roles within an institution: 'A set of services that a
university offers to the members of its community for the management
and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and
its community members' (Lynch 2003).

In a widely-cited SPARC (Scholarly Publication and Academic
Resources Coalition) paper on institutional repositories, Crow (2002) explains the potential of open access
repositories. For Crow, repositories have the potential to create a positive paradigm shift in the
processes of scholarly communication in two ways: first, the potential
to provide a complement to existing modes of publication and stimulate
changes to the current model of scholarly publishing (particularly
mitigating the increasing cost of accessing scholarly publishing); and
second, the ability to 'make visible' the research outputs of
individual institutions in order to 'demonstrate the ... relevance of
its research activities' and increase the 'visibility, status and
public value' of the institution (Crow 2002: 4).

Repository use and content recruitment

Almost all authors writing about repository archiving report
problems in encouraging author participation and use. Davis and
Connolly's evaluation (2007) found the Cornell
University repository to be under-populated and under-used by academic
staff. Key reasons for non-use included preference for existing
alternatives to repositories, a perception that repositories were
redundant, technical difficulties, concern that their work may be
plagiarised, concern regarding quality and status of the repository,
and confusion over copyright. Foster and Gibbons's (2005)
research into understanding faculty in order to improve repository
content recruitment found the majority of researchers did not perceive
the repository to be relevant to their needs, nor perceive any
potential benefit from using the repository. Apprehension towards
repository deposit (and open access publishing in general) seems to
centre around three key issues: lack of motivation to self-archive;
concerns surrounding intellectual property, copyright and plagiarism;
and negative attitudes toward open access publication and archiving as
legitimate modes of academic communication.

Mandatory deposit policies have been adopted by many institutions to
boost repository content and create a sustainable, accessible
collection of research outputs (Sale 2006). These
policies may apply to specific types of research output, to academic
staff outputs, or to postgraduate theses. While mandates take time to
be embedded in staff work processes (Sale 2006),
they have been shown to be an effective way to achieve growth and
guarantee the sustainability of repository collections. However, other
repository developers propose that mandates damage goodwill toward the
repository as an integral service and that staff buy-in is more
important to sustainability than any guarantee of regular submissions
of content (Palmer et
al. 2008).

Benefits and risks

The principle and intended benefits of open access publishing and
archiving do receive widespread support among the majority of academic
authors (Kingsley 2008; Pickton
and McKnight 2006). Archiving allows for greater exposure of a work
(e.g., through Google Scholar), thus a greater potential for research
impact (Cullen and Chawner 2009a; Kingsley 2008). Increased exposure is partly
achieved by increasing readership through the inclusion of researchers
who would not normally have access to subscription journals (Kingsley 2008). In addition, archiving allows
research outputs to be preserved in digital form, making them easier to
retrieve in preparation for funding or promotion rounds (Performance-Based
Research Fund Sector Reference Group n.d.).

Within the literature, academics are reported to be concerned about
the same set of risks or barriers associated with repository deposit.
Authors' concern over the ability to publish if a pre-print of an
article (or a thesis) is already available in an institutional
repository is often mentioned. Confusion and concern over copyright,
provenance and quality control, particularly the risk of copyright
infringement or plagiarism, is also a recurring theme in the literature
(Cullen and Chawner 2009a; Davis
and Connolly 2007; Gadd et al. 2007; Pickton and McKnight 2006; White
2008). The 2007 comparison of two JISC surveys (Gadd
et al.) concludes with the
notion that there is no single copyright solution for repository
archiving, due to the diverse types of research outputs held (e.g., data
sets, teaching materials, grey literature, theses, pre- and post-prints
and publisher's PDF files).

Disciplinary differences

Academic disciplines differ in their processes of research,
publication, recognition and reward. In the literature, different
disciplines are described as having differing attitudes to repositories
and open access publication, depending on the fit between existing
publishing channels and the new options offered by open access. In
relation to the humanities disciplines, Cheverie et al. (2009:
220) describe an entrenched culture of 'professional prejudice
against digital scholarship'. Researchers (and their students),
particularly those in monograph-based publishing cultures, perceive
that archiving or publishing in an open access journal may damage their
future careers (Cheverie et al. 2009; Jöttkandt and Hall 2007; Pickton and McKnight 2006).

Attitudes toward open access differ dramatically in the sciences,
where speed of publication and communication of results is of paramount
importance. Researchers in the sciences have more readily embraced open
access in the form of peer-reviewed open journals (e.g., PloS: Public Library of Science) and
the publication of pre-prints in subject-based repositories such as arXiv. For a researcher in a fast-moving
discipline such as computer science, archiving a work in a repository
is similar to existing research and scholarly communication processes (Kingsley 2008).

Disciplinary differences appear to extend to the next generation of
researchers. Pickton and McKnight's (2006)
study of graduate students at Loughborough University found science
students to be more willing to comply with mandatory submission of
their theses to the university repository than their fellow students in
the humanities. Both aversion to and embrace of open access appear to
be socially constructed within the disciplines in accordance with their
existing publishing norms (Cheverie et al. 2009; Duranceau 2008; Kingsley
2008).

E-theses

Despite their value as original research, master and doctoral theses
have traditionally been considered grey literature, due to their
physical inaccessibility (Jones and Andrew 2005).
In addition to boosting repository statistics, the inclusion of
electronic theses in repositories allows original research
undertaken by emerging scholars to be visible, accessible and able to
be used by the wider research community. Statistics indicate that
theses that are made available in this way are more widely
used and cited in ongoing research (Troman et al. 2007).

Postgraduate student work in institutional repositories

Few studies focus specifically on the role of student work in
repositories. Two papers by Pickton and McKnight (2006; 2007)
focus on the perceptions and needs of postgraduate students. Their 2006
paper found the majority of students to be enthusiastic about making
their theses and other research outputs available through repositories.
Support for the principle of
open access was found to be a major motivating factor. However,
students were found to hold many of the same concerns around open
access and archiving as academic staff, particularly regarding
plagiarism, quality and hindering later publication in journals (Pickton and McKnight 2006). The second paper
considers the inclusion of student work in repositories from the
perspective of repository managers. Through responses from thirty-five institutions, it was found that repository managers 'overwhelmingly believe that there is a place for research student output' (Pickton and McKnight 2007: 158-159) but that
many believed the work to be deposited must meet certain criteria to
ensure quality control. Some repository managers indicated that they
were attempting to address lack of awareness of repositories by
including information about the repository in postgraduate research
skills training.

Theoretical framework

In the current research, two theories were used to model students'
perceptions of open access publishing and repository archiving. The
first, Rogers's diffusion of
innovations theory was used to model students' awareness and use
of open access resources in their own research. The second, social exchange theory was used to
model students' attitudes toward the perceived costs or benefits of
sharing their thesis work with the wider community through an
institutional repository.

Diffusion of innovations theory

Rogers's diffusion of innovation
theory provides a conceptual framework for explaining how and
why innovations (defined as new tools, processes or ideas) come to be
adopted by certain groups. According to Kingsley's (2008)
recent work mapping Rogers's theory to empirical findings from
qualitative interviews with academic staff, institutional repositories
perfectly represent Rogers's concept of an innovation as 'an idea,
practice or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other
unit of adoption' (Rogers 1995: 11).

The term diffusion relates to the planned and/or spontaneous spread
of innovation through a process of communication, defined by Rogers as
'the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain
channels over time among members of a social system' (Rogers
1995: 5). The alignment of the innovation with the existing social
structure plays a vital role in the process of diffusion and normative
behaviour in a culture or community can be a barrier to change.
According to Rogers, the adoption of an innovation depends on the
following characteristics:

Relative advantage: an innovation is more likely to be adopted if it is perceived to be more advantageous than the ideas or processes it supersedes;

Compatibility: an innovation is more likely to be adopted if perceived by the adopters to be consistent with existing values and norms;

Complexity: an innovation is more likely to be adopted if it is perceived to be easy to understand and use;

Trialability: an innovation is more likely to be adopted if it can be experimented with during the process of adoption;

Observability: an innovation is more likely to be adopted (or at least experimented with) if it is visible, or being seen to be used within a particular community.

So, then, as an innovation, institutional repositories will be more
likely to be adopted by doctoral students if it is perceived to be
advantageous to place work in repository collections and if
repositories are consistent with existing publishing and research
practice, easy to use, known and easy to access.

Social exchange theory

Homans (1958) and Thibaut and Kelley (1959) put forward related theories explaining
social behaviour as a process of exchange between two or more
individuals within a community who are in a position to influence each
other. Social exchange theorists propose that individuals engage in
social exchange, that is, the sharing of knowledge and other social
goods for four key reasons:

anticipated reciprocity,

expected gains in reputation and influence on others,

feelings of altruism and/or perceptions of self-efficacy and self-worth,

direct reward (social, professional/career, or financial).

Studies in the related field of knowledge management successfully
utilise social exchange theory
in order to explain open information sharing behaviour in professional
environments (Kankanhalli et al. 2005; McLure-Wasko and Faraj 2005). Social
exchange theory suggests that individuals are motivated to
interact or share social goods (in this case, information and
knowledge) with one another based on an expectation that doing so will
lead to a return or reward, particularly approval, enhanced status or
respect (McLure-Wasko & Faraj 2005: 39).

In the academic environment, then, authors could be more inclined to
participate in the repository archiving process if they perceive that
it may lead to a social or professional reward in the form of increased
readership, research impact and citation rates, feelings of altruism
toward the research community and public, enhanced status, peer respect
or career advancement or promotion.

Research design

This research uses a mixed-methods approach consisting of two
stages: qualitative semi-structured interviews, followed by a
quantitative self-completion questionnaire. The semi-structured
interviews explored possible perceptions and attitudes to open access
publishing and archiving and how these perceptions were formed. The
data collected in the interviews formed the basis of a quantitative
survey in an attempt to expand on and test the interview data to see
whether perceptions revealed in the interviews were consistent among a
larger sample of doctoral students. The study utilises a sequential exploratory design
(Cresswell et al. 2003: 225), the purpose of which is to
use quantitative data to test, consolidate and assist in the
interpretation of the qualitative findings.

Population

Massey University was chosen as a sample population as it is one of
the two universities in New Zealand that have implemented mandatory
deposit of theses for all doctoral students enrolled since 1 January
2007. It also has an established doctoral programme, spreading over
three campuses in the North Island (Albany, Manawatu and Wellington).
Massey University teaches across five colleges: Science, Humanities and
Social Sciences, Education, Creative Arts and Business, allowing the
researchers access to students in a wide range of disciplines.

There were 901 doctoral students enrolled at Massey University as of
October 2009 and 382 of these had enrolled since 1 January 2007. Table
1 provides a breakdown by discipline.

Table 1: Current doctoral enrolments by college (Source: Massey University Graduate Research School)

Doctoral enrolments by college

College of Business

126

College of Creative Arts

9

College of Education

44

College of Humanities and Social Science

229

College of Science

494

Total

901

Data collection and sampling

Interviews

The interview stage involved a purposive sample of eight doctoral
students enrolled at the time of data collection across the colleges
and disciplines. Two students from each of the Colleges of Business,
Humanities and Social Sciences, Education and Sciences were
interviewed. Students of the College of Creative Arts were omitted from
the interview stage of the project due to the small population of
doctoral students. All eight interviews were digitally recorded. Data
were collected by direct transcription of the interview audio recording
and hand-written notes taken during the interviews.

Self-completion questionnaire

The second stage of the study was administered via a Web-delivered
self-completion questionnaire, with questions drawn from the findings
of the interview data and from the research literature, particularly
the results of Pickton and McKnight's (2006)
study of graduate students and the postal survey instrument used by
Cullen and Chawner (2009a). Survey Monkey was used to
build and deliver the survey. A Web survey was used to reduce the cost
of the survey process and increase the speed of data collation and
analysis (Bryman 2004).

Data analysis

Interview data

NVivo 8 was used to sort, store and analyse the interview
transcripts by theme. The interview transcripts were analysed using a
grounded theory approach as described in Bryman (2008)
and Charmaz (2001; 2006)
which allows key concepts, themes and theories to emerge through the
systematic collection, analysis, comparison and interpretation of data.

The two-phase approach to coding described in Charmaz (2006) and outlined in Bryman (2008) was used. An initial intensive, line-by-line
approach was used to analyse the first few interviews and build a bank
of themes and through comparing the codes and themes of the first few
interviews, guide further data collection and coding. In the later focused coding phase, the most
frequently occurring themes were retained, while many of the peripheral themes were either
merged or dropped altogether (Charmaz 2006).

The interview data were also mapped against criteria from the
theoretical framework. This additional coding was intended as a further
aid to interpretation of the interview data. The codes, themes and
extracts of text from the analysed data were then used to inform the
design and wording of the fixed-choice questions in the Web survey.

Survey data

The survey statistics were analysed using Survey Monkey's online
data analysis tools and Microsoft Excel. The survey responses were
analysed as a single data set, then by discipline. This was done to
investigate the relationships between discipline and:

awareness of institutional repositories and open access publishing,

adoption of institutional repositories and open access in students' research practices,

perceptions of benefit,

perceptions of risk,

willingness to comply with mandates and deposit their theses in the university institutional repository.

Use of theoretical framework in data analyses

Roger's five characteristics of innovation were used in conjunction
with the four key motivations for participation of Social Exchange
Theory to frame the interview questions and survey instrument and as
an aid to the interpretation of the qualitative data. Students were
asked about their awareness and use of institutional repositories in
their own research practices (observability, complexity and
trialability); whether they thought institutional repositories and open
access were advantageous, convenient or useful when compared with
traditional models of publication and information retrieval (relative
advantage, reciprocity, perceptions of altruism or self-efficacy); and
whether they thought depositing work in repositories would benefit or
harm their research career (compatibility and relative advantage,
reciprocity, gains in influence, reward).

Findings

Response rates and demographics

Interview participants

The interview participants were a purposive sample of eight
currently enrolled doctoral students, with two from each of the
colleges of Business, Education, Sciences and Humanities and Social
Sciences. Three students were enrolled prior to 2007, while five were
enrolled after 1 January 2007 and thus were obliged to deposit their
theses under the mandatory submission policy.

Survey respondents

From a population of 901 enrolled doctoral students (as at October
2009), 251 took part in the survey, with a 91% completion rate (a
response rate of 28%). Of these respondents, 33 (14.5%) had enrolled
before 2007 and 194 (85.5%) had enrolled since 1 January 2007 and
were thus covered by the mandatory submission policy. 109 of the
respondents were male (43%) and 142 were female (57%). 49 respondents
held an academic position and 13 held a general staff position at
Massey University. The breakdown of respondents by college (broad
discipline) was uneven (see Figure 1), with the largest group of
respondents coming from the College of Sciences (48.6% of respondents).
However, when college enrolment figures are taken into consideration,
the response from each college was fairly even, with response rates
ranging between 25% (College of Sciences) and 34% (College of
Business).

Figure 1: Survey respondents by college

Awareness of the concept of open access

Only two of the eight interview participants (both from College of
Sciences) could describe the concept of open access. Among the survey
respondents, perceived level of awareness appeared relatively high,
with 62% (152) of respondents indicating that they were aware of the
concept of open access prior to beginning the survey. However, there
could be a bias in this data: participation in the survey was
voluntary and those who responded to the survey on open access and
repositories are more likely to be interested in and aware of, open
access than those who did not. In addition, the interview responses
show that awareness does not
necessarily indicate an understanding
of open access. Levels of awareness (as summarised in Figure 2) were
highest among respondents from the College of Sciences with 72.3% (86)
indicating that they were aware of the concept of open access.

This higher level of awareness among the science interviewees and
survey respondents is unsurprising considering the existence of
subject-based repositories operating in the scientific community such
as arXiv and Cogprints (Swan and
Brown 2005).

Figure 2: Perceived awareness of the concept of open access

Support for the concept of open access

Consistent among the responses from interviewees and survey
respondents was support for the concept of open access, the importance
of making research available to the wider public and removing cost as
a barrier to accessing research. One interview participant from the
College of Sciences mentioned that she had heard that open journals
were not as prestigious as other journals, but would continue to use
them and publish in them because she preferred the concept of open access journals to
traditional proprietary journals.

In the survey data, 86.3% (195) of respondents either agreed or
strongly agreed with the following statement on the benefit of open
access: Open access is important
because it removes cost as a barrier to accessing research and allows
public access to research and information.

The desire to widen public access to information and the importance
of altruism should not be underestimated and are evident in other
studies in the literature. In Cullen and Chawner's (2009b) recent survey of New Zealand academic
staff, altruistic intent in making work available to the public was
established as one of the 'chief reasons' for making work available
open access. Swan and Brown (2004) found the
principle of free, open access for all readers to be an important
reason for publishing in open access journals. Similarly, postgraduate
participants in Pickton and McKnight's study felt that the principle of
open access was 'an important motivating factor' for the deposit of
theses (2006). So, the concept of open and
equitable access is supported by the majority of authors, which will be
useful to bear in mind when marketing repositories to doctoral students
(and academic staff).

Awareness of institutional repositories and Massey Research Online

Six of the eight interviewees were aware of the concept of an
institutional repository and five were aware of the existence of an
institutional repository at Massey University. Those who were aware of
the institutional repository at Massey University (Massey Research
Online) had found out about it through Graduate Research School
communications.

Two students mentioned that they had found out about repositories
and Massey Research Online through the Library, one through a recent
Knowledge Management in Research course for staff and postgraduates.
The other had found out through a research consultation with a library
staff member.

Less than half of the survey respondents (48%; 117) indicated that
they were aware of the concept of a repository, while 52% (127) were
aware of the existence of Massey Research Online.

While levels of awareness of
the existence of the repository were high among the interviewees,
deeper knowledge of the concept of the repository and what it is for or
can do were lacking. Even when interviewees knew about the concept and
existence of the repository, their knowledge of repositories and the
way they worked was vague. For example, the majority of interviewees
were not aware that material in repositories is indexed by Google
Scholar, making repositories a powerful tool for disseminating their
research.

Low levels of awareness (normally falling between 45-55% of
respondents) of repositories despite
marketing and advocacy campaigns is consistently referred to in the
institutional repository literature (Abrizah 2009;
Davis and Connolly 2007; Watson
2007). This lack of awareness of institutional repositories
indicates that alternative approaches to promotion are needed if
doctoral students are to be made aware of repositories and their role
in making their research available to a global audience through Google
Scholar.

Use of repositories and Massey Research Online

Only 17.6% (43) of survey respondents had lodged a piece of work in
an institutional repository and 70.5% (31) of those had deposited their
master's thesis. Only one interviewee had lodged work in an
institutional repository and only two interviewees mentioned that they
used institutional repositories directly in order to access research.
Seven of the eight interviewees indicated that they accessed Massey
research and/or theses through Google Scholar or the Massey Library
catalogue, but were not necessarily aware that they were using the
university's repository in the process. One student said that he did
not use repositories as his research needs were met by libraries and
the Internet. However, it is likely that many of the articles the
interviewees had accessed using Google Scholar (and Google) were in
fact held in repository collections, or were articles published in open
access journals.

Among the survey respondents, 51.2% (125) indicated that they had
accessed a repository. The Massey Library catalogue was the most common
mode of accessing content in the repositories at 77% (97 respondents),
while 69.8% (88 respondents) indicated they had used Google Scholar
(see Figure 3). EThOS (22.2%; 28), Australasian Digital Theses (19.8%;
25) and direct access (31.7%; 40) were also noted modes of access. Only
3.2% (4) of survey respondents who indicated they had used an
institutional repository had used the Kiwi Research Information Service.

Figure 3: Modes of accessing institutional repositories to find research

The primary reason for non-use of repositories was lack of
awareness, with 61.3% of the 119 survey respondents who had not used
institutional repositories to access research choosing the option 'I
didn't know about institutional repositories' (see Figure 4).
Additionally, 26.9% (32) of respondents who answered this question
indicated that they did not think that repositories were necessary for
their research. This perception is documented elsewhere in the
literature among academic staff, who feel that their research and
publication needs are met by existing processes of publication and
libraries' journal subscriptions (Davis and Connolly
2007; Foster and Gibbons 2005).

Figure 4: Reasons for not using institutional repositories

Institutional repositories and the literature search process

All interviewees said that they used a wide range of online
catalogues and article databases to find information for the literature
review stage of their research. However, one resource stood out as the
most frequently used resource: Google Scholar, with 91.8% (224) of
respondents indicating that they used it during the literature review
process.

Figure 5: Sources used to conduct literature review

However, only one interviewee (from the College of Sciences) was
aware that material in Massey Research Online and other repositories
appears in Google Scholar. None of the other interviewees were aware of
this despite indicating that they used Google Scholar.

Use of institutional repositories within the research and literature review processes (as
opposed to the author deposit) is seldom mentioned in the institutional
repository literature. Studies (including this one) tend to focus on
rates of deposit and author willingness to deposit (Davis
and Connolly 2007; Foster and Gibbons 2005)
or on compliance with mandates (Sale 2006). That
is, they focus on the role of the author as the producer of research,
rather than on users as consumers of research (measured by downloads or
rates of use). However, as all researchers are both producers and consumers of research, it is
interesting to note that approximately half of survey respondents had used repositories to access
research, but only 31% of these students had used the repository
directly. As respondents were most likely to access an institutional
repository indirectly, optimising the integration (and
interoperability) with existing research services and tools is
important to ensure university repository collections are visible on
the Web.

In addition, it is important to note the role of Google Scholar and
library catalogues when marketing an institutional repository to
students or academic staff. Almost all interviewees and survey
respondents indicated that they use these two tools. If students are
aware that repository content appears in Google Scholar and in library
catalogues, it is likely that they will be more motivated to archive
their work.

Perceived benefits and risks

Perceived benefits

The perceived benefits of institutional repository and open access
publishing most frequently mentioned by the interviewees were enhanced
access via Google Scholar, providing public access to their work and
increasing the speed of information dissemination. Opportunities for
networking and participation in the scholarly community were also
mentioned as benefits of archiving a thesis in a repository:

...when I put my masters on there it was a real sense of accomplishment and contributing to the field and it actually makes you feel like um, you belong to a certain community... So you know then it takes away that just a student kind of feeling... [College of Humanities and Social Sciences Doctoral Candidate]

Survey respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the
majority of benefits listed in the survey. In particular, 52.9% (119)
strongly agreed and 33.8% (76) agreed that removing cost as a barrier
to access is a benefit. Opportunities for professional networking,
feedback, exposure on Google Scholar and the ability to share work
with students, other researchers and the public were all perceived to
be benefits of repository archiving (see Table 2). As the benefits
listed in the survey were drawn from the literature and interview data,
results reflect benefits already reported in the literature,
particularly the public benefit of open access, enhanced exposure of
work through Google Scholar and the potential for increased citation,
and the potential to receive feedback and commentary (Cullen and Chawner 2009a; Kingsley
2008; Pickton and McKnight 2006).

Perceived benefits associated with publishing in an institutional repository

Answer options

Strongly agree (Yes, this is a benefit)

Agree

Neutral

Disagree

Strongly disagree (No, this is not a benefit)

Rating average

Response count

I can share my work with the public more easily

35.5% (81)

43% (98)

16.7% (38)

3.9% (9)

0.9% (2)

1.92

228

I can share my work with other students more easily

38.9% (88)

47.3% (107)

11.5% (26)

0.9% (2)

1.3% (3)

1.78

226

I can share my work with my peers and the research community

37% (84)

45.8% (104)

15.4% (35)

0.9% (2)

0.9% (2)

1.83

227

It will give my work more exposure

27.4% (62)

51.3% (116)

18.1% (41)

1.8% (4)

1.3% (3)

1.98

226

It will increase the number of times my work is cited

18.1% (41)

34.1% (77)

41.2% (93)

5.8% (13)

0.9% (2)

2.37

226

My work will be available on Google Scholar

22.8% (52)

39% (89)

36.8% (84)

0.9% (2)

0.4% (1)

2.17

228

My work will be available on research websites like KRIS

15.1% (34)

28.9% (65)

52.9% (119)

1.3% (3)

1.8% (4)

2.46

225

I can get feedback and commentary on my research

22.2% (50)

45.3% (102)

25.8% (58)

4.0% (9)

2.7% (6)

2.20

225

I can publish my research findings more quickly

20.1% (45)

40.6% (91)

33.5% (75)

3.1% (7)

2.7% (6)

2.28

224

I can rely on the university to preserve a digital copy of my research in the long term

33.9% (77)

40.1% (91)

20.3% (46)

3.5% (8)

2.2% (5)

2.00

227

Open access is important because it removes cost as a barrier to accessing research (and allows public access to research and information)

52.9% (119)

33.8% (76)

11.1% (25)

1.3% (3)

0.9% (2)

1.64

225

Other academics in my field can find my work and contact me (professional networking)

36.2% (81)

50.4% (113)

11.6% (26)

1.3% (3)

0.4% (1)

1.79

224

It will enhance the research profile of my university

22.6% (51)

45.6% (103)

27.9% (63)

2.2% (5)

1.8% (4)

2.15

226

It will enhance my own research profile

26.2% (59)

46.2%(104)

24.4% (55)

2.2% (5)

0.9% (2)

2.05

225

It will help me keep track of my research (for CV or PBRF)

23.6% (53)

36.4% (82)

31.6% (71)

5.8% (13)

2.7% (6)

2.28

225

Answered question: 228

Skipped question: 23

Perceived risks

The perceived risks described by the interview participants included
the potential conflict of interest with journal publishers, concerns
around plagiarism (particularly in relation to theses) and a
perception that open access was less prestigious than traditional forms
of publication. Two interviewees expressed concern over opening
themselves up to criticism by placing their thesis work in the public
domain.

Survey respondents had similar concerns, but overall, results were
more balanced, with the majority of responses falling in the neutral
category, indicating uncertainty or ambivalence to the presented risks
(see Table 3). The two risks that caused the most concern included the
copying or use of work without permission and plagiarism. Conflict of
interest with journal publishers and issues over copyright restrictions
were also noted.

Confusion regarding journal publishers' copyright restrictions and
concern that work may be plagiarised or used without permission are
frequently mentioned in the wider literature (Cullen
and Chawner 2009a; Davis and Connolly 2007; Gadd et al. 2007;
Pickton and McKnight 2006; Watson 2007; White 2008).
Most frequently mentioned is author concern over the conflict of
interest with journal publishers and the effect of archiving on an
author's ability to publish if the pre-print (or in this case, a whole
thesis) is openly available. These issues are unlikely to ever be fully
resolved in a short term, due to the wide variety of permissions and
restrictions associated with different journal publishers. With the
help of online directories such as SHERPA Romeo, library
liaison staff and/or repository administrators are in a position to
advise on problems around electronic copyright and publishers'
permissions, as part of their liaison and outreach services.

Peceived risks associated with publishing in an institutional repository

Answer options

Strongly agree (Yes, this is a risk)

Agree

Neutral

Disagree

Strongly disagree (No, this is not a risk)

Rating average

Response count

There may be a conflict of interest with journal publishers

17.8% (40)

37.8% (85)

38.7% (87)

4.4% (10)

1.3% (3)

2.34

225

If I publish my work in an institutional repository I may not be able to publish elsewhere due to copyright or other
restrictions

22.9% (52)

36.6% (83)

37% (84)

2.6% (6)

0.9% (2)

2.22

227

People may copy or use my work without permission

24.1% (55)

38.6% (88)

25.5% (59)

10.1% (23)

1.3% (3)

2.26

228

My work may be plagiarised

24.2% (55)

34.4% (78)

28.2% (64)

11.5% (26)

1.8% (4)

2.32

227

I am concerned about confidentiality concerning the participants' information

11.1% (25)

21.7% (49)

39.4% (89)

21.2% (48)

6.6% (15)

2.91

226

I am concerned about confidentiality concerning the researcher's details

8.4% (19)

24.0% (54)

38.2% (86)

24.4% (55)

4.9% (11)

2.93

225

I am concerned that the research in an institutional repository is not perceived to be as prestigious when compared to print
journals or books

19.6% (44)

32% (72)

34.7% (78)

12% (27)

1.8% (4)

2.44

225

I am concerned that the research published open access is not perceived to be as prestigious when compared to
print journals or books

17.9% (40)

29.6% (66)

32.3% (72)

17% (38)

3.1% (7)

2.58

223

People will not be able to find my work

6.8% (15)

15.8% (35)

43.7%(97)

28.4% (63)

5.4% (12)

3.10

222

My work will not be cited

7.6% (17)

18.2% (41)

42.2% (95)

28% (63)

4% (9)

3.03

225

I am concerned about the long-term preservation of my work

9.4% (21)

14.3% (32)

37.2% (83)

32.7% (73)

6.3% (14)

3.12

223

My thesis might not be good enough to put in the public domain (on the web)

6.6% (15)

14.2% (32)

31.9% (72)

34.5% (78)

12.8% (29)

3.33

226

Publishing my thesis open access will allow people to criticise my work

6.3% (14)

26.7% (59)

33% (73)

26.7% (59)

7.2% (16)

3.02

221

Answered question: 229

Skipped question: 22

Influences on publishing behaviour

Interviewees mentioned a variety of influences on where and how they
would publish their doctoral research. Other than their own opinion,
supervisors were identified as a major influence, while colleagues,
tutors, departmental guidelines and publishing by invitation were also
mentioned.

Most survey respondents (79.5%; 189) chose agree or strongly agree when presented with
the following statement: I publish
where my supervisors recommend I publish. While repository
deposit is not the same as peer-reviewed publication, this result
indicates that respondents may be influenced if, for example, a
supervisor recommended they deposit their thesis in a repository. This
finding is consistent with the results of Pickton and McKnight's study (2006), in which students were found to be
willing to be encouraged by supervisors and their departments to
deposit their work. Therefore, it is important for library staff and/or
repository administrators to work with supervisors and academic staff
when communicating the electronic thesis submission processes.

Willingness to comply with mandatory submission policies

Of the five students covered by the mandatory submission policy, all
were willing to comply and submit a copy of their thesis to the
repository. Of the other three, all said that they would voluntarily
place a copy of their thesis in the repository upon completion. Some of
the interviewees were particularly supportive:

you know you've invested four years, or longer, so I think um really you owe it to
yourself to put it out there... [College of Humanities and Social Sciences Doctoral Candidate]

However, two of the eight interviewees expressed some concern over
the mandatory submission policy. While supportive of placing their work
in the repository and happy to comply, these interviewees expressed
preference for the voluntary submission of their theses:

I think it should be optional I don't think it should be mandatory... It's a piece of work that is
personal to the student and I don't think that the student should be
forced to share that work with the research community if for some
reason they don't think it should be. [Humanities and Social Sciences Doctoral Candidate]

Among the survey respondents, 77.3% (177) either agreed or strongly
agreed with the following statement: Except in the case of an embargo,
all doctoral theses should be made openly available online through an
institutional repository (see Figure 6). Many survey respondents
commented on this particular statement. Comments varied widely: some
comments indicated strong support for the statement and the concept of
open access:

The NZ tax-payer paid for most of the inputs to the research (university staff and
facilities) so should have free access to the work.

Open knowledge is very important, not only for the sake of my thesis but for the sake of
the society as a whole.

I think it's fantastic to be able to access theses online. It may mean someone
actually reads it!

Figure 6: Opinion on making theses available online and open access

Please indicate whether you agree with the following statement: Except
in the case of an embargo, all doctoral theses should be made openly
available through an institutional repository.

Some respondents expressed preference for a voluntary system or were
ambivalent toward archiving their work in an institutional repository:

shouldn't be made compulsory though

I believe it should be the choice of the student to publish their thesis in that format.

Keeping in view the benefits and risks of institutional repository, I am neutral on this question.

Some students were opposed to archiving their work in a repository:

I feel that it should be the choice of the individual student. I am concerned about
plagerism [sic] by having it online and strongly oppose having my
research published electronically.

Of the 33 survey respondents who were enrolled before 2007, 83.3%
(25) indicated that they would voluntarily place a copy of their thesis
in Massey Research Online. Of the 194 respondents who were enrolled
after 1 January 2007 (and are thus covered by the mandatory submission
policy), 92.6% (176) indicated that they will willingly comply with the
mandatory submission policy. Only 7.4% (14) of respondents indicated
that they would not be willing to comply.

Within the literature, opinion is divided regarding the necessity
for (or wisdom of) mandatory submission policies for student and staff
research output. Some stakeholders argue that mandates could do more
harm than good in relation to depositor buy-in, preferring a library
liaison and advocacy approach, while others (including some of the
academics themselves) are unconcerned by mandatory deposit policies (Palmer et al. 2008). Other authors argue that mandates are 'the only way' to
achieve appropriate submission rates (Sale 2006).

The results of this study indicate that the mandatory submission
policy is widely accepted by the survey respondents and should remain
in place as a key strategy for increasing the visibility of the
research output of the university. This result is consistent with the
findings of research by Pickton and McKnight (2007)
and Swan and Brown (2005), in which the majority of
students and academics (respectively) were found to be willing to
comply with a mandatory deposit policy.

Disciplinary differences

From the disciplinary differences described in the literature, it
would be expected that students from different colleges would have
widely differing levels of awareness of open access and repositories,
and different attitudes toward the respective benefits and risks
associated with repository publishing. For example, Cheverie et al. (2009)
describe an 'entrenched culture of professional prejudice against
digital scholarship' and report among academics in the humanities, for
instance, a perception that archiving or publishing in an open access
journal may harm their careers (Cheverie et al. 2009; Jöttkandt and Hall 2007; Palmer
et al. 2008), while in
some scientific disciplines, researchers describe a culture that
embraces open access repositories as a normal part of the scholarly
communication process (Kingsley 2008). Pickton
and McKnight's study of graduate students at Loughborough University (2006) found that science students were more
willing to comply with mandatory submission of their theses to the
university repository than their fellow students in the humanities.

Among the survey respondents, awareness of the concept of open
access was highest among the College of Science candidates, at 72.3%
(see Figure 7) and awareness of the concept of a repository was
highest among the College of Education and College of Business
respondents at 58.3% and 53.7% respectively. In addition, awareness of
Massey Research Online was highest among College of Education and
College of Business respondents, at 66.7% and 64.3%.

Figure 7: Awareness of the
concept of open access (by college)

Prior to reading the definitions above, were you aware of the concept
of Open Access as it relates to scholarly (academic) publishing?

Respondents from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences were
found to be the least frequent users of repositories, with 39.3%
indicating that they had never used repositories to find research (see
Figure 8). However, there was less of a difference between the response
profiles of the different disciplines than expected, given the
differences in research and publication cultures described by
researchers working with academic staff populations (Jöttkandt and Hall 2007; Kingsley 2008).

Figure 8: Use of institutional repositories for research (by college)

Have you ever accessed a repository to find your own research, a
colleague's research or to look for other research?

There was a high level of willingness to comply with the mandatory
thesis deposit policy. Positive responses ranged between 91.6% from
respondents in the College of Science to 100% in the College of
Creative Arts.

While there are some differences between the colleges, the
differences found in this study were certainly less marked than those
previously discussed in the literature. This result may be specific to
this doctoral population, or may represent a growing acceptance of open
access and/or Internet-based resources within the research and
scholarly communication process.

Interpretation of the data in relation to the theoretical framework

The theoretical framework was used as an aid in the development of
the interview guide and survey instrument. In addition to a grounded
theory approach to coding and analysis, the interview data were
concurrently coded against the categories of the theoretical framework
as an alternative aid to interpretation. Codes regarding awareness and
use were mapped against Rogers's diffusion
of innovations criteria, to determine the extent to which
institutional repositories can be considered an effective innovation.
The data were also mapped against the four criteria of social exchange theory in an
attempt to determine the extent to which the practices and processes of
publication and scholarly communication operate as a kind of social
exchange or transaction within the world of academia. While the
majority of codes did not easily fit the assigned criteria, a few key
themes and observations emerged through this process.

Observability, trialability, complexity

Levels of awareness (observability)
among the survey respondents of open access, repositories and Massey
Research Online hovered around the 50-60% mark. In addition, there was
confusion among all interviewees as to the role and purpose of an
institutional repository. In terms of complexity, one of the
interviewees found the technology frustrating to use and did not feel
that they had the time to spend learning to use it:

I found when I did have a bit of a look
through you know sort of the possibilities I didn't find it (the
repository) particularly easy to... it's just like ah, I can't waste
time on this. [College of Business Doctoral Candidate]

This observation is consistent with existing usability (trialability and complexity) issues in
a study by Lindahl and Foster (as cited in Bevan 2007)
in which DSpace failed usability tests (Massey Research Online is a
DSpace installation). In this case, complexity is likely to be a
barrier to accessing and using repositories directly, but not a barrier
to accessing repository content through Google Scholar or library
catalogues which have been found to be widely used by the respondents.
This result highlights the importance of optimising repository metadata
for discoverability through existing research portals and search
engines such as Google Scholar, the Kiwi Research Information Service
and the Australasian Digital Theses.

Relative advantage

An innovation is more likely to be adopted if it is perceived to be
more advantageous than the ideas or processes it supersedes (Rogers 1995). Most interviewees were unaware of one
of the primary advantage of repository archiving: work deposited in a
repository is indexed by and thus available through Google Scholar.
Once aware of this fact, the interviewees were very positive about the
advantages of placing an electronic copy of their thesis in a
repository, in addition to placing their thesis in a physical library
collection:

Oh yeah, well there's wider access, so it's almost
global access isn't it, if Google Scholar is in there so yeah, so as
far as new material reaching as many people as possible, then
definitely very positive (motivation). [College of Sciences Doctoral Candidate]

One student was also aware of the relative benefits of open access
journal publication, particularly in terms of the speed of publication
and providing public access to research:

One of them just really... he likes the speed of
it and, he's got some cash (research funding) in a fund or whatever
that he can access so he's not worried about the cost of it so yeah
he's really the speed and the concept of people being able to read it
openly... and can get hold of it [College of Sciences Doctoral Candidate]

Gains in influence, direct reward

Interviewees indicated that they did not expect direct reward from
the open access archiving of their theses. However, interviewees
expressed that they thought their work would be more likely to be cited
or read if placed in a repository which was perceived to be a benefit.

Reciprocity

Interviewees indicated that they wanted to be able to find other
students' work online, share their findings with the community and
contribute to the wider research community. The fact that the majority
of survey respondents favour mandatory submission could be an
indication that they expect to share their own work with the research
community and use other students' thesis work within their own
research. Among the survey respondents, 95% wanted to see other
students' doctoral theses in institutional repositories.

Altruism and self-efficacy

This is demonstrated in the form of sharing the research with fellow
students, the public and research community was the most frequently
mentioned motivating factor identified within the interview transcripts:

I like that, you know, students could access it, or
high school students if they wanted to, or even just the lay person who
is interested in science but isn't a scientist, you know there's a lot
of people out there who I think that are interested in a lot of things
that feel like they can't access information because they're not in the
know. [College of Sciences Doctoral Candidate]

Within the doctoral community, the process of conducting research
and publication can be considered a form of social exchange. From the
results, it appears that students are motivated to share their work and
they expect to access other students' work during their own research.
Students also expect to benefit from sharing their work, particularly
from increased exposure and potential to build professional networks,
and by boosting their confidence with feelings of altruism and
self-efficacy; feeling they are making a contribution to their research
community and public knowledge.

As an innovation, repositories operate as an effective means to
share doctoral work and have clear advantages over the traditional
publication format of theses in print. As an innovation, repositories
allow researchers to push their research to the international research
community as never before and appear to have widespread support among
the doctoral student community at Massey University. However, the
diffusion of institutional repositories throughout the academic
community is still at a relatively early stage. There is some way to go
before there is widespread awareness and adoption of open access
archiving.

Conclusion

This exploratory study represents an attempt to uncover the
underlying attitudes of New Zealand doctoral students toward open
access publication and institutional repositories, as well as their
attitudes to the mandatory submission of their theses to their
university repository.

Student awareness of open access and institutional repositories

The study shows that awareness of open access and institutional
repositories is still fairly low, even in a research-focussed community
of doctoral students. While the majority of interview and survey
respondents indicated that they support the concept of open access, the
interview transcripts indicate that most respondents lack a deep
understanding. Given that the mandatory submission policy has been in
effect since 2007, all students are given information on repository
submission via the Massey University Doctoral Handbook, policy
information is available online via the Graduate Research School and
Library Websites and Massey Research Online is linked from the library
homepage, awareness of the university repository remains surprisingly
low. However, high levels of awareness and support for open access and
repository archiving among those interviewees who had attended a
postgraduate Knowledge Management in Research library course indicate
that this could be an effective forum in which to communicate
information regarding the mandatory deposit policy.

Use of repositories, open access journals and monographs

In terms of doctoral students' use of repositories and open journals
in their own research, results indicated that only a relatively small
number of the respondents used open access research services like Kiwi
Research Information Service, Australasian Digital Theses and EthOS.
However, the overwhelming majority of respondents used Google Scholar,
so it is likely that they access open access material from journals and
repositories without realising it.

A small amount of data regarding the use of open journals in
research and publication emerged from the interviews, but was not
enough to adequately answer research sub-question: Do students use
repositories and other open access journals and monographs in their own
thesis research? Further research into the use of open access resources
in scholarly research may be useful to investigate emerging publication
and citation trends.

Perceived benefits and risks

In relation to benefits and risks, respondents had similar
perceptions and concerns to those of academic staff and UK postgraduate
students already documented in the literature. The respondents
perceived that repository publication of theses was beneficial both for
themselves and the research community, but had concerns regarding
copyright and the potential for plagiarism.

Concern over the effect of archiving of theses on future publication
was a recurring theme in the literature and in the current research,
but was not able to be addressed within the scope of this project. In
order to address this concern within the academic community, an
investigation of publishers' perceptions of open access and
institutional repository deposit and the effect of repository archiving
on future publication may prove a useful contribution to the
institutional repository literature.

There appears to be an overwhelming support for the principle of
open access in enabling public access to research. Knowledge-sharing
for the public good was clearly a key principle for the doctoral
students surveyed and one that may not yet have been explored by
library and Graduate Research School staff when promoting repositories
to the doctoral student community.

Finally, the ubiquity of Google Scholar as a research tool cannot be
ignored. It was found to be used by almost all respondents from all
disciplines and is accessible to those researchers working outside the
university environment. Making students (and staff) aware that if their
work is in a repository it will then be available on Google Scholar
could be a useful promotional strategy.

Disciplinary differences (and influences)

While there were some differences in awareness of open access and
repositories between the disciplines, they were not as marked as
expected, considering the differences described in the literature. When
separated by college, responses concerning attitudes toward the
benefits and risks associated with repository archiving and open access
forms of publication were surprisingly similar. Hopefully, this result
indicates that the next generation of researchers in all disciplines
are increasingly open to new models of research publication and are
perhaps more comfortable in the online research environment than their
earlier counterparts. However, it is important for repository
administrators and library staff to consider the perceptions of
academic staff and supervisors, as they were found to have the greatest
influence on the perceptions of the respondent group.

Willingness to comply with the mandatory deposit policy

This study indicates that the mandatory deposit policy is a useful
strategy to build the core collection of an institutional repository
and one that is supported by the majority of survey respondents. The
majority of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that theses
should be made openly available online. In addition, over 90% of survey
respondents who were covered by the mandatory deposit policy were found
to be willing to comply. It was also interesting to note that 83% of
the respondents who were not covered by the policy were willing to
voluntarily deposit a copy of their thesis in the repository.

The key recommendation for the library and information profession is
to ensure that the mandatory submission policies and the benefits of
repositories are communicated to students through a variety of channels
including academic supervisors, official research school
communications, handbooks, library workshops and other liaison or
outreach services in order to ensure that each student understands the
purpose and benefits of archiving their theses.

About the authors

Kate Valentine Stanton is the College Liaison Librarian for the College of Business at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand. She holds a BA/BFA from the
University of Auckland and a MIS from the School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington. Kate can be contacted at k.v.stanton@massey.ac.nz

Chern Li Liew is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Information Management at Victoria University
of Wellington. She holds a PhD in Information Studies from the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore and a MSc from Loughborough
University. She can be contacted at chernli.liew@vuw.ac.nz

Pickton, M. & McKnight, C. (2006). Research students and the Loughborough institutional repository. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science,38(4), 203-219.

Pickton, M. & McKnight, C. (2007). Is there a role for research students in an institutional repository? Some repository managers' views. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science,39(3), 153-161.

Sale, A. (2006). The acquisition of open access research articles. First Monday,11(9). Retrieved 28 November, 2011 from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1409/1327 (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/63XZ3rZvX)